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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24282550">Sharp Eyed Calico</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deadlybeautyblue/pseuds/Deadlybeautyblue'>Deadlybeautyblue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it's a Fallen London/Minecraft Youtube au [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, mcyt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Solar and zain suckered me into this AU, and i do not regret it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:28:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24282550</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deadlybeautyblue/pseuds/Deadlybeautyblue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An prospective plotline for a certain Brazen Wanderer and Cunning Butcher.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it's a Fallen London/Minecraft Youtube au [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sharp Eyed Calico</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s not like you were looking for him, okay. You’re, above all else, careful. You’ve got nothing notable about you for a reason, skills kept just sharp enough to make an honest living doing admittedly dishonest things. You know the dangers that come to those that seek, even if they don’t Seek. You keep your head down, and you stay alive. But once you learned about him, just a sliver of a secret, it was like you saw him everywhere.</p><p>It started because you were cat chasing. Secrets are a currency all their own, and if all else fails they can be turned to currency of a more tangible sort in the bazaar. It was a ragged calico stripe of a tomcat and it had led you on a wild chase across the rooftops before you could corner it against a wall and a chimney. It hissed and spat out an oath, before focusing lamp bright eyes on you. It narrows them and purrs, “A lingering secret for a persistent chaser, I think.”, Though you can no longer remember the specifics of it, having sold it in the following days, it is a good enough secret to be traded. What you can remember is that you had to turn over in your head to attempt to order in a way that isn’t catwise logic. What you can also remember is the way the calico leaped from your loosening arms and looked down, smugly, from the chimney. “I wouldn’t think too long, if i were you, on the secrets of Cocky Jo.“</p><p>You weren’t looking for him. But the next week you had taken up a commission about a Jack, a penny-dreadful you could write almost in your sleep. But every Jack story needed some slivers of truth or at least a very good lie, so you went out to listen to rumors on the street. You still haven’t decided which extreme luck’s dice landed on that day, but whether by luck or unluck the name returned again. A distracted comment made by a longshanks with his eyes set on the windowsill of a house that wasn’t his, “There was a fellow who befriended a Jack of course, if rumor is to be believed, Cocky Jo, I think they called him. Utter bull of course, but it makes for an excellent story, doesn’t it?” He was up and over the garden hedges before you could press further. You ended up writing about an alleyway spattered with viscera and lacre. There were no details included about anyone befriending a Jack. It would simply be too outlandish. By the time you finished the commission, you had almost convinced yourself of that.</p><p>You decided to take a break from Veilgarden after that. You were determined not to look for Cocky Jo. But curiosity remained on the edges of your eyesight and your mouth was full of question-marks, so you changed your morning walk to pass through Ladybones, where everyone with a watchful eye can be a detective for a time. It didn’t take you long to find a case, a clever young lady who nevertheless required someone to track down a notebook. She payed in honey with perhaps too much familiarity with the jars, and pointed you towards a grudge. From there you found a motive, some unfortunately literal herring, some torn out pages that you copied and then tactfully returned, and eventually a pawn broker. She had not been satisfied with just knowing the location, and demanded her book full of blackmail back in order to pay her in full. It wasn’t the first time you’d been required to move through shadows to complete a case, and so you found yourself opening a narrow window one night and wriggling in. The book was easy to find, and once you had secured it and checked that no more pages had been removed you had turned to leave. That was when you saw him, standing next to a glass fronted display case. Everything about him had looked tired and worn. Everything except for his eyes, hidden behind orange glasses. “Only the journal?” He’d asked. You had responded with something, you can’t remember now, something about how taking things you didn’t recognize would only lead to trouble. You can’t remember if he reacted beyond a studious gaze, but after your stumbled explanation he’d turned and pulled a suitcase from the wall. With his attention no longer focused on you, you were more than happy to leave and bring the journal to the rendezvous. The man had unsettled you. The suitcase, even more so. You hadn’t seen much, but you had seen the name Cocky Jo scratched into the leather. As soon as you received your payment you vowed off detective work for at least a month. </p><p>You went to zee. It was not a good plan, not really, but you had experience being a zailor before, though you had not been fond of the bats. You had originally just worked the Wolfstack Docks, unloading ships and trading news from London to the zailors who’s ships ferried sphinxstone near nonstop. But when a captain mistook you for a zailor and offered a large salary of echoes for manning a trip to Polythreme. Well. You’d always meant to visit. And if it took you far from London and a particular name that you couldn’t stop hearing, all the better. (In the jokes told at the Singing Mandrake, on occasion. When discussing recent black ribbon duels. Almost never in Society gossip, but the urchins had rhymes about him if you listened right. Now that you knew what to listen for, you were almost always listening.) You didn’t mean to find him. But just as the captain was about to depart, a man came hurtling up the jetty and booked a last minute berth. The name he gave was Jonathan Kannon. The whole trip there you were determinedly ignorant of who you shared a ship with. You spent most of your time developing a shaky trucy with the bats and helping an Armored Mechanic fix the engines. When pressed, you had excuses aplenty about why you didn’t seek the company of Kannon. Something about the way he kept a firm grip on his scarf whenever you were around unnerved you. (Hadn’t how heard of a black ribbon dueler who fought with his scarf?) Or maybe it was the way he was always chattering, though never really to anybody. (A bawdy joke, poorly delivered and drowned out by jeers, but something about an axe that spoke.) He was obviously comfortable with the journey to Polythreme, which was something no one that is quite sane should be. (Jo’s off to Polythreme again, you had heard in a ballroom, wonder what he does over there?) You avoided him. Mostly because all of the clues were there. You’d always been a halfway good detective. If you’d have slipped, looked at him, then you’d have to solve him. You stubbornly refused to realize you’d already done it until the boat had safely docked. The less said about Polythreme, once you finally got there, the better. Needless to say, you could not avoid knowing the other name Kannon went by, and that was enough to rattle you. Polythreme, you discovered, was not a good place to be rattled while visiting. Luckily, Cocky Jo decided he needed more time on Polythreme than your captain was willing to stay, and his berth was empty for the time it took you to get back to London.</p><p>At this point you realized that if you kept swearing off places where you encountered evidence of that man you’d quickly end up barricaded in your lodgings. Perhaps not even there; you’d been fending off a small deployment of rats ever since you came back from Polythreme, and it wouldn’t be surprising if there were rats that told stories about Kannon as well. So you took up a variety of work, pinned down a position as a courier for a while. It was after delivering a parcel of knives and letters that was stained with wax and stunk of devils to a particular seller of meats that you saw him. Not the him that haunted you, not Cocky Jo, but the man with the (not quite) orange glasses. He held out a package. “I know you’re a courier, and one with light enough fingers to accomplish a delivery to a locked house. The address is attached.” You’d taken the package and an upfront payment that promised a hefty full one. “Why me?” You’d asked, though you were already thinking about alleyways and windows. “You’re already involved,” he’d said, with what might have been a grin’s ghost crossing his face, “may as well get some use from you.” Involved in what, you decided not to ask. Breaking in wasn’t the easiest task, though you managed after a few nights to case the lodgings, and setting the package on the nightstand, as specified. Getting out wasn’t an issue either, a simple matter of clambering out onto a neighbor’s roof. No, the problem was two roofs into your escape, when you quite literally ran into the man you’d been trying your d___dest to avoid. It wasn’t your fault, he’d swung himself up onto the roof by means of the gutter just as you prepared to leap, and the combination of these knocked the both of you into a heap on a balcony a story down. “I’m incredibly sorry-“ he’d started, then cut himself off, “no wait, I’m certain I know you!” This was possibly the thing you’d wanted him to say the least, but in the name of trying not to be obvious about your recent shadowy exploits, you attempted small talk. “We were on a ship together, to Polythreme.” He brightened, “You! Now I remember. I figured you were a full time zailor by how surly- zurly?- you were. What brings you to the rooftops of London?” You scrambled for an excuse. “Cat-chasing. A calico, actually.”<br/>
“Tricky lil things, calicos. Ed’s been looking for one in particular for a while. Says it’s been causing trouble for him. Anyways, I’m just heading home, you should come with me and I’ll get some tea going.” You really didn’t have a choice. You don’t think he realized how familiar you were with the layout, but you know that your reaction to the supposed mystery package was not nearly good enough. You’d never been particularly persuasive, after all.</p><p>Returning to your lodgings after collecting your payment from (Ed) your employer, you feel like an almost burnt out stub of a candle when you hear the rattle of your loose window garden. It‘s the calico again, the same one who first told you Cocky Jo’s name. You are up and out and onto the rooftops without a thought, the last edges of your energy propelling you across patchwork roofs. The calico is not being particularly fast, but there is pride on the line, and a cat can never simply give away a secret. First, it must be caught. You do catch it, on a roof with wooden shingles gone to rot many streets away from the comfort of your lodgings. You snatch it from where it’s paw has broken through the rot and hold it close to your chest as you scramble to a safer section. It grins and fixes wide eyes on you. “I promised a lingering secret and yes, if your rumors are to be believed I delivered? But I think out of all of the secrets I have a chaser like you should get more than what you wanted.” It stretches, best as it can in your arms and purrs out its next lines.<br/>
“A walker of the dreaming-roads meets a man who carries Polythreme along the banks of the Stolen River. It’s a rare event, and it is intended to be such. Both split whatever wine the river buries in the mud as they are are the other’s closest enemy. Many years ago they split another drink, and now the Stolen River is the only one either visits.”<br/>
It walks along your shoulders, having melted out of your arms as you listened, stunned. “You’re not a bad chaser, and smell like a good secret too. I’ll keep you awhile and listen rumorwise about the rivals. Chasers do not chase a cat that sits on shoulders, and I think perhaps if you care to listen You will hear what I hear.” You run a hand that trembles just a little against its side and decide not to argue. Perhaps it will even deign to help with the rats.</p><p> </p><p>[You have gained one (1) Sharp-Eyed Calico. Watchful +5, Shadowy +2, Nightmares +2. You do not like to think about the secrets this cat has told you. You think about them regardless.]<br/>
[You have gained +1 to your Orbiting the Brazen Wanderer and the Cunning Butcher. Your new total is 5.]</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks Solar and Zain for reminding me that Fallen London existed.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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